Belt buckles have been known for ages, and typically include a prong or tongue which passes through an opening or hole formed through the material of the belt—usually leather, in order to hold the belt material in place. Other types of buckles, or more generally, closures, have also been employed for use with belts, strapping or the like, and typically require the use of a mechanical compression device, or some other mechanism, in order to secure them in place by clamping down on the belt or strapping.
Especially with belt buckles, and more particularly with belt buckles used together with leather belts—which is by far the most common usage of such buckles—the fact that the prong or tongue of the buckle must pass through an opening or hole in the belt or strap, means that adjustment of the belt around the waist of the wearer is not fine, because the space between the holes is typically in the range of 1 cm up to 3 cm, or so.
The inventor herein has unexpectedly discovered that, with the proper assembly of non-magnetic frame components, magnetic flux plates, and/or planar magnets, an extremely strong clamping action can develop between the two principal component assemblies of the buckle. This effect is provided, however, only when the material with which the buckle is employed permits the passage therethrough of a magnetic field. Certainly, leather belts and/or and fabric or plastic belts and strapping meet this criterion.
Moreover, the present invention takes advantage of the fact that with the employment of a number of relatively strong but small planar magnets, that if the magnets are presented in coordinated sets, and the sets are physically placed so that the face of one planar magnet having, say, the north pole thereat is held a short distance (e.g. 0.2 to 2 cm) away from the face of another magnet having the south pole thereat, there is a strong magnetic attraction between the magnet sets. While any suitable magnets might be used, such as ceramic magnets, or other permanent magnets, a most preferred form of magnet is a higher strength permanent magnet, is preferred. Most preferably, the magnet is a “Neodymium” magnet, or more precisely, a neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) magnet, which is known to those skilled in the art of magnets.
With the use of this type of magnet, the magnets used in the practise of the present invention, can be relatively small, namely, that each of the magnets used typically have a diameter of from about 5 mm to 25 mm, and more preferably, from about 8 mm to about 12 mm.
When the magnets are placed in a face-to-face arrangement, and having opposite polarity, the attractive forces between the magnets is used to create a clamping action, and thus hold the buckle assemblies together.
If the magnets are slightly offset, this attraction force will also cause a sideways motion of one of the magnets with respect to the other, so that the respective north and south poles will either come into contact with one another, if permitted, or at least move to a position where they will face one another, if the magnets are held apart. Further, this would be true regardless of whether a typical belt or strapping material is placed between the magnets through which the magnetic field of each of the magnets is permitted to pass.
Additionally, if two such planar magnets are physically placed so that the north or south poles of each magnet face each other, there will be a strong physical repulsion between the magnets, and there must be a constraint or restraining means provided so as to keep the magnets from flying apart.
Thus, in the present invention, it would be advantageous to provide a belt or other strapping buckle, that operates by use of the attraction and repulsive forces of magnets, and thus allow fine control of the positioning of the belt or strap being clamped.
A further advantage of the present invention would be to provide such a buckle that operates easily, and moves from a magnetic repulsive position to a magnetic attraction position, with minimal effort. It is a preferred feature that the buckles of the present invention move from a open to a closed position, by use of the characteristics of the magnets employed.